Contrary
by Dyani
Summary: Galinda thinks that Boq himself is the problem, but Elphaba disagrees. Bookverse, Glinda/Elphaba and Boq/Elphaba friendship


Notes: I heard a rumor that said Meltalviel was the best beta ever. Guess what? _It's totally true_. O: Also thanks to my chief proofreader and best friend who is always the first to read my stories and never gets impatient with me needing to be assured that I am not, in fact, the worst writer ever to live. Yaaay!

This might be continued... someday. But I'd definitely have to change the genre. And the rating. ... And the friendships to pairings. Just sayin'.

* * *

"_Hmph_!" Galinda announced as she leaned against the door of their room, arriving later than usual from her afternoon classes. It wasn't unheard of, but this time she had worked herself up into quite a huff.

Knowing that whatever was irking her roomie would soon be irking her, too, Elphaba placidly went on reading.

"Aren't you going to ask me why I'm late?" Galinda demanded. She knelt on the edge of the bed in front of Elphaba, who was leaning against the wall with her legs curled up to her chest and a book balanced on her knees.

"Hmm." Elphaba looked thoughtful, and turned a page. "No, I don't think so."

So of course Galinda took the drastic step of closing the book and pulling it away, wrapping her arms around it protectively. "Your awful little nuisance of a friend just cornered me after class and held me up for nearly ten minutes!"

"One of my friends is being a nuisance right now, and it's not Boq," Elphaba sighed, but she couldn't be angry, because Galinda had thoughtfully kept one finger between the pages of the book to mark her place. She was learning. "All right, he wanted to talk to you. About what?"

"Oh, I don't know, anything. Just an excuse to talk to me, you know how he is." Galinda waved a hand as if warding off a particularly persistent insect.

"He probably expected you to listen, too."

"He wanted to know if he could treat me to a cup of tea at the café in Railway Square."

"And you said no?"

"Of course I said no! I'm here, aren't I?"

"But why not?"

"_Because_," Galinda sighed. Elphaba raised an eyebrow, waiting, so Galinda expounded, "Because I find his company tedious, is that a good enough response for you?"

"Not really – for I don't think that's true. The two of you get along just fine when I am around."

"That's only because your constant stream of unsolicited commentary is _so_ maddening that it distracts me from everything else," Galinda said firmly, as though this should solve the argument.

"I think that it isn't Boq you find so off-putting, but the possibility that someone important might spot you chatting over tea with a poor boy in a frayed coat."

Elphaba was smiling faintly, but her eyes held a sharpness that tore the conviction from Galinda's voice before she could even begin to argue. "That isn't fair," she said quietly.

"But it's true." Elphaba shook her head. "You can see the irony, can't you?"

"I don't quite –"

"His attraction to you and your disdain for him are both based solely on appearances. You have given him no reason to rhapsodize endlessly about your virtues, and he's given you no cause to be so repulsed by his company that you won't even listen to him when he speaks. You've judged one another by inconsequential exterior attributes and thereby given up the opportunity to really know one another at all."

"Not... not _entirely_. Well, _I_ haven't. I just don't like him, that's all."

"You never gave him a chance."

Galinda tilted her head back, brimming with righteous indignation. "I certainly did! You can't have forgotten that disastrous meeting in the garden."

"I found it quite entertaining," Elphaba grinned, "and would like to arrange something like it again sometime. And no, you can't claim that for your own account; you went only to satisfy me, and only to reject him in person, not to give him a chance."

"Elphaba,_I don't like him_. I told him so as clearly as can be done. What more do you want from me?"

"Nothing. Except my book, if you please." She held out her hands, and with an exasperated sigh Galinda handed it back, open to the proper page.

"You are always taking up for him, Elphie. I don't understand it."

"I only do that to be contrary, you know," Elphaba said, already returning to her reading. "If by some twist of fate you had ended up hopelessly smitten with him, I'd have been obliged to point out his flaws at every opportunity in an effort to bring you back down to earth. It's nothing to me who you do or do not choose to like, but I do, as you know, take grim pleasure in forcing you to think."

_Or perhaps you are a little too familiar with the idea of being judged by appearances to be sympathetic to me_, Galinda reasoned suddenly, later on, but she dared not suggest this to Elphaba.


End file.
